Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Monday December 03, 2012 @08:47PM
from the goa'uld-staging-center dept.

sciencehabit writes about new estimates of Vega's age giving hope that any planets it might have are old enough to harbor life. From the article: "Shining just 25 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra, Vega is the fifth brightest star in the night sky. In 1983, astronomers discovered dust orbiting the star, suggesting it had a solar system, and Carl Sagan chose to make Vega the source of a SETI signal in his 1985 novel Contact. At the time, Vega was thought to be only about a couple hundred million years old, probably too young for any planets to have spawned life. Since then, however, estimates of Vega's age have increased to between 625 million and 850 million years old. So suitable planets have probably had sufficient time to develop primitive life."
With improvements in telescopes allowing detection of the rough atmospheric composition of exoplanets on the way, this could be pretty exciting.

Sheesh! You can't just come out and say it like that! You need to carefully construct a fear campaign that they are harbouring WMDs/Terrorists. Then we can go in full force and as a bonus we get to rape the planet for any resources too!

I suggest a preemptive Vega strike to wipe out any aliens before they get us first!

Playing Vega Strike isn't going to wipe out any aliens, no matter how hard you try.

As a postscript, did anyone else glance at the submission and read the headline as "Vegas Older Than Thought: Mature Enough To Nurture Life." That'll be a relief to the people who live there, I thought.

The Vegans should not pose a problem for us. Their strict adherence to a non-carnivorous lifestyle, shunning even protein rich foods like cheese and eggs, ensures that we would be able to beat them in a fair fight.

Idiotic fantasy: Scientists sit around eating cheetos and drinking soda and guess which stars have planets.

Reality: Thousands of engineers and scientists dedicate our lives to refining theories based on decades (in some cases centuries) of work and building the most sensitive instruments ever created and the fastest computers ever built in order to know which stars have planets and life because science and engineering are FUCKING AWESOME.